After buying 6 bags of finer cypress mulch to hold me until the mulch truck comes with my 5 yards from hardwood, I happened to be reading "The Holistic Orchard" by Michael Phillips, who gives super detailed explanations about why one would not want to use a softwood mulch for fruit trees or garden plants. He's done many experiments and has concluded that ramial mulch from the upper branches and outer/newer growth is incomparable in the way it promotes soil fertility - especially with miccorhizal fungi and such. Here's an excerpt from p. 9: "The arrays of familiar choices at the home and garden center generally do not cut it from a biological perspective. Bark mulch comes from softwood logs for the most part, and therefore comes rich in tannic compounds that once protected standing evergreens from decay.. ..Tannins will suppress healthy growth in garden and orchard alike.....Bulk wood chips in a bag....are a brown rot phenomenon.... Let [it] rot for a few years and it's a whole different story.. -Michael Phillips, "The Holistic Orchard" He then goes on to discuss why you never want to use landscape cloth under your mulch if your long-term goal is healthy, fertile soil. Wet newspapers or cardboard are fine, as many have already mentioned here. The former creates a crust of inhospitable hardpan. Despite the problems with these mulches, they shouldn't impede water flow, as mentioned by nhardy above. I almost wonder if your problem was due to the "weed block".

I have been planting out cool season veggies for the past week and a half with mixed results. Lettuces, and spinach look great, but I had to replant some of the peas and beets. The peas I think just suffered from too many nights around the freezing mark without protection, and the beets probably would have done fine if I would have thinned them, instead of trying to separate the little sprout clusters. Oh, and my broccoli sprouts didn't make it either. Not sure if it's too late to sow more of the broccoli or not. I direct sowed parsnips, carrots, and radishes. The radishes started sprouting within a week, but the other two are slower germinators. Yesterday, I put out the Swiss chard sprouts too. I had to untangle some of the roots when I planted them, and some don't look too happy this morning. I'm holding off on planting out the cauliflower too, especially since the broccoli didn't do well. The good news is that it's really supposed to warm up this week, temps in the 70's, and lows in the upper 30's, so things should start taking off now. Can't wait for that first fresh salad!!! Bonnie

i can't see the whole plant and the pot its' in. the start growing actively in spring. at this time usually some older leaves shrivel up and die. it's normal. it'll produce new ones. Just make sure to give keep it moist when it goes into active growth. don't know where you are geographically. it likes to be warm - so further south it would be in active growth for some time already. but when the temps are around 65F it slows down - which is winter conditions for most people up north indoors :). in general they don't like fluoride in water - so let your water stand overnight before you water. Fluoride can cause patches on edges of the leaves. but not like this. i don't see anything warranting worry at this point. some spots like these are inevitable in spring on older leaves. They will get worse most likely - but do not cut them off untill they yellow completely. now, if these are young leaves that is a diff situation. but i can't figure it out from your pics.

Robins....or any other birds.......don't dig holes 2' deep and 2' wide looking for worms or other soil critters. Whatever is doing this is mammalian. Did you use any strongly scented organic fertilizer when planting? Blood meal, bone meal, manures? That could be attracting undesirables. I suppose you could just put the cloth on the ground as you described but you lose the benefit of it keeping all the flying insects away from your plants as well. I'm not sure why you are finding this so difficult to do. As I mentioned before, it is a very common practice and you see these row cover tents or tunnels in virtually every p-patch/community garden in the area.